Dev continued to
play with his stick, tapping at leaves and turning over small rocks.
Brushing back her long, dark hair, Shaya glanced around the park.
Grassy slopes with large patches of bushes rose up from one side of
the path. To the other side, reeds and thin, spindly trees stood like
petrified sentries around the pond. Its water lay still and glassy.

After bouncing up
and down a few more times, Shaya sighed and continued along the path.
Dev could be late home from school if he wanted; she wasn’t
going to sit through another telling-off by their mother because of
him. Dev was thirteen — one year older than Shaya — but
sometimes it felt like he was seven.

She hurried along,
hands jammed in her pockets, shoulder bag swinging against her side.
As she passed a tangle of bushes to her left, something dark on the
ground made her slow her steps. She stopped and crouched down.

It was a circular
object, and appeared to be made of feathers. Shaya reached out for
it, and just before she touched it, her spine prickled.

Quickly, she
glanced around. No one else seemed to be in the park apart from her
and Dev, and he was every bit as far back as before. No doubt he was
trying for real, now, to annoy her. Telling herself the chill up her
spine was only the result of the cold wind, she reached out and
touched the small, black hoop.

“Mine,”
a voice whispered.

Shaya sprang back.

“Who’s
there?”

She looked around
again. The voice had sounded like it came from behind her, but the
path was deserted.

“H—
hello,” she said nervously.

No answer came.

Shaya bent down
towards the hoop again. It appeared to be some kind of bracelet, and
half of it was pressed into the ground, as if someone had stepped on
it. The part sticking up had an oily sheen to it, the feathers
glinting blue-black in the fading light. Taking a breath, Shaya
reached out and snatched it up.